


Haunted

by Fierceawakening



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1727933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bit of headcanon work for an RP I've been doing that became a ficlet in its own right. Set in an AU where Optimus Prime actually died at the end of Season 2 and the Decepticons rebuilt the Omega Lock and restored Cybertron. In killing Optimus, Megatron made his choice... but it takes more than just blasting a stronghold in the desert to come to terms with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted

Remade by the power of the Omega Lock, Iacon was different.

He knew that it would be, of course. His will guided the restoration of Cybertron, and he would never have left it exactly as he remembered.

Not even as it fell.

The domes he soared above were beautiful. For all the bitter rage within him, he would never have denied the city that. But the soothing, iridescent blues glowed angry red now, bubbles of frozen fire. The quicksilver avenues had dulled to gray and black, metal curling sharp around the fragile-looking domes, as though ready to pierce them at any moment.

Winging into the city with speed born of despair, he almost wished they would. That his will alone could shatter them as his armies did so many long millenia ago. That the searing fury whirling through his spark alone could set the city aflame, just as his followers burned it in retaliation for the destruction of Vos.

And in vengeance for one mech’s betrayal.

He transformed as he landed, his massive feet thudding hard against the metal ground.

The city was empty, of course. Very few Decepticons are left on the planet at all. Still fewer of them would ever bother to come to Iacon, even to visit the Hall of Records and seek out the last remnants of the histories lost so long ago.

And any of those would have left immediately once they saw their Lord’s silhouette in the skies above them.

Starscream had tried to stop him, of course.

He’d known something was wrong immediately, perhaps thanks to the strange bond the dark energon had forged between their sparks. Or perhaps he’d simply seen it in the fey gleam of his lord’s optics and the twisted rictus of his smile.

Either way, he’d known immediately where Megatron meant to go.

“Master,” he’d pleaded. “The war is over. Your reign has at last begun. There is no need for this. You’ll only — “

“Leave me be,” Megatron had growled, his frame rumbling in rising anger.

Starscream had squeaked in dismay, a high chirp of anxiety. “Of course! But —” he’d stopped, twitching his wings, searching for words “everything you want — everything you need — is here —”

Megatron had shoved him aside with enough force to send him across the room. He’d landed in a heap, too startled by the sudden blow to right himself.

Their victory had brought them close; the unlikely bond between their sparks had cemented their connection.

But seeing Starscream right himself and crawl toward him, claws outstretched and beseeching, Megatron had turned on his heel and walked away.

“If you try to bar my way,” Megatron had growled, glaring over his shoulder at Starscream. “I swear to you on the sparks of Primus and Unicron both that I will rip your wings from your frame and toss them into a smelter.”

And Starscream hadn’t needed to consult the bond between them to know that, however loyal he had become and however gladly Megatron had greeted his return, he would make good on the threat.

He had hung his head in defeat, his claw hanging in the air between them, until finally, with agonizing slowness, he had lowered his outstretched arm and turned away.

Megatron thought of it now, standing at the gate to the Hall, staring at broad metal doors that towered over even his massive frame. For a moment he felt queasy, his spark seizing with remembered shame.

_I am not welcome here._

But Cybertron was his, remade by his very will, and for him, all gates would open. He raised his hand to the lock on the door, pressing his claws to the panel, curling them inward and hearing the metal screech in protest as their tips pierced it.

He smiled. It felt good.

The gates opened.

His spark surged as he stepped inside, a wild mist of rage choking him, red flame flaring before his optics.

The room, of course, was empty of life. Datapads dotted the walls, bright with the knowledge they held. The Hall of Records was a library, after all.

And although Iacon was not Megatron’s home, he had always valued knowledge.

The secrets he craved and needed were hidden far away from here; only the highest of the old castes had access to the ancient records. One did not simply walk in the door and find such things.

A visitor to the Hall, a mech who had just walked in the door, would find little more than propaganda here on the lower levels. The Hall was a wealth of information, but information came only to those the higher castes had deemed worthy of it.

He clenched a fist and gritted his fangs, feeling the bite of his own claws digging into the plating of his palms.

 _I remade this place by the power of my will_ , he reminded himself. _Nothing is forbidden me any longer._

The things hidden at the top of the dome were his to claim now. The truth he’d so painstakingly sought to piece together was his for the taking now, if he cared to look for it. He had only to ascend to the higher levels, seek out the ancient histories that contained the truth, and read it for himself. He had no doubt it would confirm everything he had ever said or believed.

_But that is not why I am here… old friend._

Holograms flared to life as he stepped into the silence, speaking with recorded voices.

Messages of welcome, spoken in a dialect that was not his. He roared to drown them out.

_You are not real._

_You are only shadows._

Only one mech would have been real to Megatron, even if he had opened these doors to find the Hall buzzing with life, guides ready to direct him to this or that empty, sanitized history or hollow tale, its moral always the same: the promise of the Golden Age and the importance of the social systems that held it together.

All of that would have been nothing to Megatron, as dead as the nonsentient machines that flickered on as he walked past, chattering their words of empty welcome.

Only one mech had been truly alive here.

And that mech had chosen his path long ago.

And Megatron, in his turn, had chosen to burn it to cinders under him.

He fell to his knees, the light of the holograms and datapads searing his optics as he roared again, a thunderous sound pulled from his core. His spark surged wildly in his chest, a burning ring of flame. And deep within it the dark energon stirred, its chill a counterpoint to the fire of his rage.

That was cold, cold and alone, and craving to devour all life it found.

But there was nothing here to consume.

He rose to his feet, the incandescent heat of his rage searing every part of him, pouring forth from his spark into every circuit in his frame. Behind it came the numbness of the dark energon, the chill of absence, the cold fire of his despair.

It surged through his weapons systems, crackling in the air around him as it gathered in the cannon atop his arm, a storm building inside him.

He unleashed it now, blind in his fury, his cannon firing bolts of crackling light into the holograms, which went on speaking, heedless of his presence, and the stacks of datapads, which tumbled down around him in flares of heat and light and flame.

A hologram flickered. A voice died in a burst of crackling static. Then another, and another, and another, until the only things left in the silence were the bursts of his cannon fire, the crash of the ruined datapads falling around him, and the wails torn from a throat he had forgotten must be his own.

He screamed out his despair, the blade tucked within his wrist extending as the blackened datapads tumbled down around him. He tore at them, growling like a beast, his blade tearing through them with the force of a gladiator’s strikes.

 _He is dead_ , Megatron thought suddenly, the voice inside his head emotionless and dark and cold.

_He is not here. He set himself against you, and you destroyed him._

Megatron’s optics flickered once, then dimmed. He heard the roar of his own fans, fighting to cool his systems after the exertion.

The room was dark and empty, half the lights shot out by his own cannon fire, the others flickering down at him.

They were red-hued, like human blood or dying embers.

His own will had made them so.

He snarled into the silence, his arms sagging. His blade retracted into its place over his wrist.

Inside he felt hollow, empty, as though the life-consuming cold of the dark energon had devoured his own spark and left him there, moving and thinking despite his life-force guttering out within him.

He stared out over the devastation, charred and blackened things all around him, just as if the war had come here, chasing him to the heart of his home world.

And suddenly the emptiness inside him felt good, the hollow ache pure and clean, his rage vented and spent.

There were things in this Hall he needed. The lies could crack and burn, but the rest must endure.

His people, at last, had their second chance.

And their chance to know themselves, without the ghosts of their lord’s past haunting them all.

“It is over,” he rasped, his voice a rough, staticky whisper.

A smile curled his scarred lips, and somewhere inside himself he felt a flare of warmth as his spark flickered to life again. It crackled deep within, fierce and strong, its whirling calm at last.

Nothing would replace what he had lost here. Nothing would restore what war had taken from him.

But the ghosts he’d come here chasing would never trouble him again, and never again would be come here to rip open his own old wounds.

He turned back toward the door. Perhaps he would have this level repaired. Perhaps all those who came here would walk through the devastation to find the things that had been hidden so long ago.

He would decide which, someday. But not now. Not today.

The doors opened for him. He stepped through them, walking out into the city, the fragile red shapes of the domes rising around him.

He snickered once. Then he ran, speeding down the road that before leaping high into the air and transforming, his thrusters firing as he rose into the air over the city.

He sped away, leaving it glittering and empty behind him.


End file.
